Trump administration overrode Social Security staff to list immigrants as dead

A senior executive who objected was marched out of his office and put on leave, while earlier warnings about the agency’s deaths database were ignored.

The Washington Post (Archive)

A crow’s math skills include geometry

Crows are able to look at a handful of four-sided shapes and correctly distinguish those that exhibit geometric regularity from those that don’t, according to a provocative new study.

NPR

FEMA will stop matching 100% of Helene recovery money in North Carolina

Gov. Stein: ‘I am extremely disappointed and urge the President to reconsider FEMA’s bad decision, even for 90 days.’

NC Newsline

Indo-Caribbean LGBTQ Hindus stake a historic claim to Holi in New York

Advocating for the rights of Caribbean immigrants and LGBTQ people, a coalition of social justice faith organizations has become a fixture of the largest Phagwah celebration in the U.S.

Religion News Service

Poor People Often Don’t Survive To Become Seniors Who Vote

Political participation of the poor is overall lower because of poverty, bad health and many other factors, but millions of impoverished Americans across the country also die prematurely. For instance, in 2015, research funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Social Security Administration revealed that, since 1990, among the bottom quarter of Americans with the least education, life expectancy has either stagnated or decreased. That’s for well over 40 million people.

Add to this negative trend the fact that mortality among the poor increases during middle age — which is when citizens generally get more involved in politics. The premature disappearance of the poor, then, occurs precisely at the moment when they would be expected to reach their “participatory peak” in society. But they don’t live long enough to achieve that milestone.

Intelligencer

Tennessee pastor does a very gay thing to avoid “gay beams” in TSA scanners

“Where was the Constitution when the Patriot Act was passed?” Isker said. “Right? Give me a break. Like, I had to be molested at the airport to go to Florida, right, just to get on an airplane, just because I’m not going to go through the ‘gay beam’ machine. I didn’t let C. Jay do it. I wouldn’t let him do it. I said, ‘You’re getting patted down, too, buddy. I don’t want them turning you gay.’”

Into

Trump’s Foreign Aid Cuts Are Killing Jobs for US Contractors, Too

Ives’ story is playing out at companies large and small across the US that put into action or monitored thousands of USAID programs that were officially terminated in February. It’s an example of how Trump’s push to cut government spending — which is targeting tens of thousands of government workers — is eliminating thousands of US jobs in the private sector too.

Bloomberg (Archive)

Power, Obligation and the Universities

This small recollection from 40 years ago has been rolling around my head recently as we watch the debate among universities on how the react to Trump’s lawless drive to tame them and bring them to heel. A number of universities targeted by Trump face losing hundreds of millions of dollars of grants and contracts. That means potentially shuttering labs, laying off hundreds, maybe thousands of people. I know from my own long experience that it’s easy to talk a big game until you have to make payroll. But I said a couple days ago that former President Obama is right. Universities need to fight Trump, not as an explicitly partisan matter, but for their independence and integrity as universities. And to do that, universities need to be prepared to forego federal funding if necessary to preserve their independence. As a society we grant these institutions great benefits of prestige, power. Some build up massive endowments, not private wealth but still, at the largest and most storied institutions, vast wealth.

Talking Points Memo (Archive)

Trump lawyers confirm wrongly deported Maryland man in El Salvador prison

The administration’s confirmation of García’s location was confirmed to the court by Michael G Kozak, who identified himself in the filing as a “Senior Bureau Official” in the state department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

The Guardian

DOGE takes over federal grants website, wresting control of billions

A DOGE engineer removed users’ access to grants.gov, threatening to further slow the process of awarding thousands of federal grants per year.

The Washington Post (Gift)

Trump Is Selling Jews a Dangerous Lie

As the first Jewish president of a formerly Methodist university, I find no comfort in the Trump administration’s embrace of my people, on college campuses or elsewhere. Jew hatred is real, but today’s anti-antisemitism isn’t a legitimate effort to fight it. It’s a cover for a wide range of agendas that have nothing to do with the welfare of Jewish people.

The New York Times (Gift)

Passover demands we reject cruelty toward strangers in our land

The connections between HIAS’ work and the subject of the holiday are obvious. But in preparation for this year’s Passover, the Haggadah struck me differently. Its emphatic obsession with the need for personal connection to the story felt less like a moral lesson and more like a bubbling anxiety. What happens if we grow too distant from the narrative? What does that do to us? To our values? To our culture?

Religion News Service

Reclaiming America’s Future: Radical imagination & the rebirthing of a new nation

Probably sensing the resistance, Professor Ifill challenged us directly, asking, “What was the point of the Montgomery Bus Boycott?” Various people replied: Desegregation, support the Civil Rights Movement, demonstrate the power of Black dollars. Professor Ifill quickly clarified, “The point of the boycott was to desegregate the Montgomery public transit system. That’s it. Not to end racism. Not to pass federal legislation. Not even to end segregation in America.” 

She went on to explain that the vanguards of the Civil Rights Movement didn’t hinge their hopes on a single grand gesture. This boycott was just one of many actions in a movement long in progress, and it took much more time, discipline, and work before the courts finally ruled Montgomery’s public transportation system unconstitutional—more than a year later.

This correction was crucial, as it illustrated that the goal of democratic imagination is not just solving society’s most significant problems, but strategically using power to force the system to uphold its Constitutional responsibilities at all levels, at all times, and for all citizens. That’s a much more expansive understanding of the cause and reveals many opportunities for individual and collective participation. Our job as citizens, Professor Ifill implored, is not to be the hero, it’s to play our part. 

Queerty

Exclusive: Trump budget proposal would fully eliminate Head Start

More than 1 million parents wouldn’t be able to go to work under the proposal, the National Head Start Association warned late Friday.

USA Today

3 cases of rare brain disease reported in Hood River County; 2 reported dead

The rare brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease have been found in three cases in the past eight months, and it’s unclear if these cases are linked at this time, according to the Hood River County Health Department on Friday.

KOIN

Peru’s president avoids impeachment over ‘Rolexgate’ scandal

A congressional committee in Peru has dismissed an investigation into President Dina Boluarte over allegations she accepted Rolex watches as bribes.

BBC

UK could target parts of Chinese state under new foreign influence rules

Conservative MPs have called for China to be included in the enhanced tier. The shadow security minister, Tom Tugendhat, told the Commons last year that “the advice from MI5 was very, very clear. If China isn’t in the enhanced tier, it’s not worth having.”

The Guardian

The Quiet Crisis in the U.S.-Korea Alliance

The only foreign policy issue in South Korea, meanwhile, that is gaining momentum is one that is not in U.S. interests—that is, the growing calls for going nuclear. The combination of North Korea’s unchecked nuclear buildup and uncertainty about Trump’s commitment to South Korea’s defense has led to a groundswell of calls for South Korea’s nuclearization. According to recent polls, 66 percent of South Koreans support their country going nuclear. Prominent Korean political leaders in both the conservative and progressive camps have not ruled out such policies, with some openly supporting them.

Center for International & Strategic Studies

Israel hits over 90 targets in Gaza in 48 hours, warns more to come

The Israeli Air Force has attacked more than 90 targets in the Gaza Strip in the last 48 hours, a military spokesman said on Sunday.

dpa International

Trump Showed His Pain Point in His Standoff With China

Xi Jinping, who rules with absolute authority, has shown he is willing to let the Chinese people endure hardship. President Trump revealed he has limits.

The New York Times (Gift)

50 years after Lebanon’s civil war began, a bullet-riddled bus stands as a reminder

Lebanon observed a minute of silence Sunday to mark five decades since the 1975 bus shooting in Ein Rummaneh.

The New Arab

Jet Set Nightclub death toll rises to 225: More famous victims identified

After the Jet Set nightclub roof collapse that led to the demise of Dominican merengue singer, Rubby Pérez, more details have unfolded recently. The tragedy that happened on April 8, 2025, at around midnight, has claimed 225 lives so far. The number of injured people rescued from the rubble was 189. At the moment, more than 200 people are recorded as injured. FIve of the individuals are in critical condition, and 15 are still in the hospital.

Soap Central

Ambassador does not deny Russian attempts to track UK subs

Russia’s ambassador to the UK has not denied allegations that Russian sensors have been hidden in seas around Great Britain in an attempt to track UK nuclear submarines.

BBC